NOTHINGSCOTT
DAVIS '92C had encountered since graduating from Emory College
prepared him for Tibet. Not the field work studying grizzly bears in
Wyoming or marine biology research in the Caribbean, Indonesia, and
Micronesia.

Last summer, while
tracking shark migration off the American West Coast, Davis, who is
pursuing a masters degree in marine biology at the University
of California at Santa Cruz, signed on for a six-week medical relief
project with the non-profit, San Franciscobased Tibet Child Nutrition
Health Project, which brought a quarter of a million dollars worth of
antibiotics, vitamins, aspirin, blood-pressure medications, and other
basic medical supplies into remote areas.

"The [Tibetan]
villages are very rural, tough places to get to, a lot like frontier
towns or outposts, with no running water, no sanitation, very little
electricity. Virtually nothing gets to them in terms of health care,"
Davis says.

The relief effort
faced political as well as geographical obstacles, including the presence
of the occupying Chinese government. Escorts were present at all times,
travel permits were required before every foray into individual villages,
and Davis and his team were strictly forbidden from even mentioning
the name of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and temporal leader
of the Tibetan people.

The
Tibetan people were "amazing and incredibly warm. They would rush
to hold your hand."

But Davis says
he was always heartened by the receptiveness of the Tibetan villagers.

"Generally speaking
they were amazing, incredibly warm. They would rush to hold your hand
and want to touch you. The people would come out in droves and line
up for hundreds of feet waiting all day just to be seen."

Davis was equally
struck by the relative contrast, and comforts, of the Tibetan capital,
Lhasa, where even Western pop culture has made inroads. More than once,
children ran up to the blond-haired, blue-eyed Davis yelling "Brad Pitt!
Brad Pitt!," he says, a testament to bootlegged copies of the recent
film Seven Years in Tibet.

Davis also toured
Buddhist shrines and scaled an eighteen-thousand-foot section of Mount
Everest. But his most lasting memories remain with the Tibetan villagers.

"Its a pretty
emotional trip, and living under those conditions you just couldnt
help but feel the stress theyre under."

The
blond-haired Davis, shown here with a Tibetan monk, was frequently
mistaken for Brad Pitt, star of the film Seven Years in Tibet.

For Davis,
that instilled a sense of purpose into the trip, one he plans to
repeat this summer by spending eight or nine weeks in Tibet.
G.F.

Top:
While volunteering with the Tibet Child Nutrition Health Project,
Scott Davis 92C took time to scale an eighteen-thousand-foot
section of Mount Everest.